Getting Inspiration from Amanda Evans’ Recipe: Stuffed Bell Peppers

I think my blogging mojo took its much needed break. With the holiday and the recent “vacation” because of typhoon Maring, I’ve been feeling a little bit off of my game. I feel less inspired and haven’t thought about any recipe in days now and such a thing is highly unlikely for me.

So to get inspired today, I got this tasty tapas recipe from Amanda Evans.

Amanda Evans is a trained chef, crazy about good food presentation. She’s the owner of Table Treasure, an online store that provides quality, stylish, affordable dining accessories and gifts, helping those who love food and entertaining to present food beautifully and style up their dining.

Juts check out this Ocean Spray Tapas Dish. It’s made of terracotta but is glazed blue on the surface to give it an elegant touch. Oh how I would love to have this on my table serving up this Stuffed Bell Peppers!

Just so you know, Amanda’s recipe originally calls for Chiquino Peppers but since I couldn’t find one at the supermarket, I just settled for small green bell peppers. I just added cayenne powder to the filling so it’ll have some heat as these bell peppers tend to be sweet than hot. I also used the most aromatic Spanish Chorizo I could find.

No need for any fancy ingredients, these tapas could instantly transport you to Spain. At first, that herby-earthy-sweet smell of the bell peppers roasting in the oven was enough to get me excited. Then, I was actually surprised that the sweetness of these bell peppers really went well with the fiery yet flavorful chorizo filling. It was all a play to my senses — and it was fun!

Very much like this Midnight Ocean Olive and Stones Bowls Set that caught my eyes! These are perfect not only for olives and it’s stones but for Oriental appetizers as well. Say, Mini Spring Rolls on the Olives dish and the Sweet-Chili Dipping Sauce in the stones dish…

This is a recipe by Amanda Evans and originally calls for Chiquino Peppers

Author: The Peach Kitchen

Serves: 4

Ingredients

8 Chiquino or other small peppers

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

50g picante chorizo sausage. Peeled and cut into small cubes

1 medium sized potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes

½ a small onion, finely chopped

6 stoned black olives, roughly chopped

1 clove garlic, crushed

¼ teaspoon fresh lemon thyme leaves

½ teaspoon smoked paprika

squeeze lemon juice

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat the oven to 150C

Slice the top off the peppers, discarding the stalk and seeds from inside.

Place on a baking tray and drizzle with about 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. With your hands, rub the oil over the surface of each of the peppers and the inside coating evenly. Sprinkle with salt and pepper inside and out.

Roast in the oven for 30-40 minutes, until soft but keeping their shape, turning over during cooking to ensure a nice even brown colour.

Remove from the oven and if you prefer, remove the skin from the peppers when cool enough to handle. We left the skin on ours, liking the colour and shine it picks up from being roasted.

To make the filling, heat a tablespoon of oil in a heavy based frying pan. Add the chorizo and cook for 3-4 minutes, turning frequently so the fat starts to render out of the sausage. Add the onion and potato and fry gently stirring frequently until the potato starts to soften and brown.

Add the garlic, salt and pepper, Thyme leaves and paprika and put a lid on the pan. This way the filling will continue to fry, but the steam kept inside the pan will help to soften the potatoes. Take off the lid and squash the potatoes with the back of the wooden spoon.

Continue to cook, lifting the lid off the pan to stir occasionally and squashing the potatoes a little until the filling is soft. Squashing the potatoes will make the filling easier to stuff and help the cooking, but you want the filling to have some texture, so don’t try to make ‘mashed potatoes’.

Stir in the olives, squeeze of lemon juice and check the seasoning adding salt and pepper as required.

Leave to cool slightly then stuff the filling into the peppers.

Return to the roasting tray and warm back through for 2-3 minutes. Serve on a tapas dish with a drizzle of olive oil and a few thyme sprigs or chopped flat leaf parsley to serve.